| | I just learned this... "The ESV Bible [English Standard Version] seeks to translate the original Greek and Hebrew words with the greatest possible accuracy and precision, it carries forward the great historic stream of Bible versions in English with literary excellence, beauty, and depth of meaning, in a fresh and compelling way."
It is a Bible, and a Bible nonetheless. It is still not something I would necessarily read or follow or could believe in completely. I do have beliefs, I just like to keep the parts with me that I like or find comforting from wherever I may find them. But I think it is a really interesting idea, for scholars to translate the Bible in a way that reflects historical context... I am sure people still take the passages very literally regardless and I am just not that naive, but I still think it is a cool concept.
If I had it my way people would still be able to follow the principles and the teachings of the Bible, but would realize that most of the stories were, in a sense, Christian mythology and that every word in the Bible need not be taken as absolute fact. Especially not in ways that promote discrimination and obstruct the civil rights of other human beings.
I do, although, commend people who are willed enough to believe in something, especially if it helps them be a better person or lead a better life. I have no problem with faith or worship, I just think that when religion becomes as organized as, the Catholic Church for example, or even Christianity as a whole inclusive of all denominations, that things can get out of hand and pushed too far.
Many Christians, and I'm sure people of other organized religions as well, are all too willing to accept ideas that are potentially harmful to other people in numerous ways without even questioning them. They accept these ideas because of these words in this book, without a second thought as to whether it truly is right or wrong, and they define that as "morality," which all in all doesn't sound moral to me at all.
Which is why I liked this quote from the ESV Bible:
Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. Jam. 3:17 ESV
I'll tell you something, that sounds like the God I would like to meet. Open to reason, full of mercy, impartial and sincere. All of the traits that Christianity was supposedly found on which are seemingly all too absent in today's religion... I have never talked to someone who was overtly Christian about a controversial topic and had them be any sort of open to reason, and never impartial or even capable of mercy towards the other side of an issue. If people followed passages like that as closely as they followed creationism or obscure lines from Leviticus that are severely outdated, the world would be a much nicer place to live in.
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| | Posted 6/3/2009 10:59 AM - 11 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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